Kadri Ismail, owner of I Love DC Gifts, and his son, Khalid, are reflected through a glass window of the store in Washington on June 7. opens at 8 a.m., Khalid Ismail is ready for “the storm.” A tour bus can roll up at any minute and unload a hundred teenagers to speed shop at his family’s store.
“This fits my personality,” one boy said, wearing a white bucket hat with Donald Trump’s name stitched across the front.sweatshirt that says “Good Vibes.” Even in June — months after the city’s famously fleeting flowers have come and gone and daily temperatures approach 90 degrees — the sweatshirt dominates. Ismail said he’s never seen anything bewitch customers so fervently, although Trump merch is a close second: T-shirts with“We have no horse in the race, politically.
Five presidents later, the American public is still hungry for patriotic merch. Our appetite for what to buy, however, has evolved. Postcards barely sell these days and political pins are out ; pet gear and fast fashion sunglasses are king. Robbins, of EF Tours, said “there’s no financial relationship that we have with any of the gift shops” but that some are better suited for big bus groups than others. Shops need to have a “diversity of inventory,” including both snacks and souvenirs, maybe a bathroom and the infrastructure to handle and process a swarm of young adults.